


Beginnings

by Star_Going_Supernova



Category: Godzilla - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe?, First Meetings, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Movies, Young Titans, all i know about them is entirely from the 2014 and 2019 movies, fight to the death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:53:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22468957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: Beginnings, or, the story of how a bond destined to survive the ages was forged in blood, fire, and kindness.
Relationships: Gojira | Godzilla & Mothra (Kaiju)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 33





	Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> y’know, i never imagined myself writing a first meeting story for a radioactive lizard and his moth queen, but here we are. how do you write a story with creatures who haven’t been exposed to human words and constructs? with lots of substitute words, that’s how. neither of them have names, tho. i promise it’s godzilla and mothra, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this, because I really did have fun writing it!

He was bored. What was the good of having the whole world to explore when so much of it was the same: an endless stretch of water. He wasn’t lost exactly—though it might’ve been more exciting if he had bene—but he was far beyond the boundary of his family’s territory and anything he saw now would be new.

If only there was something to see besides water.

It was with great relief and triumph that he finally spotted something breaking the line of the horizon. An island, he observed as he swam closer. It wasn’t terribly large, not like some he’d seen before, but it was big enough to hopefully have something interesting on it.

Climbing out of the water, he gave himself a shake, basking in the warm sun for a moment before venturing away from the shore. The jungle he entered was deep and thick with trees larger than himself, young as he was. He still had much growing to do before his size would rival his sire’s. There was silence, but for his own movements.

He didn’t have to travel far before the stench of spilled blood flooded his nose. The sharpness of it was new, not older than the span of the last sun or so. When he followed the smell, he discovered minor devastation of the land.

Trees had been broken and burned, living things scattered and destroyed. Dark stains covered the wreckage. A fight had been waged here, and it had ended with someone’s demise.

He’d never fought against such stakes before. Play-fights and practice ended when one opponent or the other was pinned or injured. But here, on this island, death reeked around him.

Shaking his head and huffing to dislodge the stench, he moved on, more than eager to leave the battleground behind. The island’s silence made sense, then, if a predator inhabited it. He would not linger unnecessarily, but his curiosity kept him from fleeing outright.

It was as he neared the island’s meager mountainous terrain that he heard it, something like a whimper. It was the noise of a young creature, one who was not yet able to care for themselves. It’d been a long time since he’d made such plaintive cries of his own.

Remembering the blood-splattered ground, he set off in search of the possibly orphaned youngling.

The nest he stumbled across was not so much well-hidden as it was difficult to access. Had he been much shorter, or had he lacked the sounds guiding him, he would’ve had a hard time finding it, tucked between a truly massive tree and some protective boulders. It was a good one, too, and mostly made of materials he didn’t recognize—soft things, many many soft things. He’d been raised among rocks and ruins, and though he’d been perfectly content lying on such, even he could admit this nest looked comfortable.

Inside was a wiggling creature, smaller than him by half. It looked as if a tree had fallen and been striped of its branches, all mottled brown and oddly textured. There were no scales, no fur, nothing. All he could tell was that the wider end seemed to be the head, for a small but sharp stinger stuck out from the thinner end.

Now, he didn’t have much experience with younglings, much less those of a different species, but he knew distress when he heard it and smelled it and saw it.

Taking cues from his memories, he huffed loudly and leaned towards the youngling to rumble at it.

It froze for a moment, its cries going quiet, before it wiggled around much more deliberately until it was facing him. Bright eyes the color of the ocean were the only other color on the creature. It stared at him, a small set of mandibles opening and closing slowly. He stared back. It wasn’t whimpering anymore.

Still curious, he circled the nest to get closer to the creature. It watched him, but made no threatening gestures or noises. Perhaps it was just as intrigued with him as he was of it. Careful to keep his teeth hidden, he leaned in to get a better scent of it.

He discovered her—for she shared a particular aroma with his own mother, just as he knew he shared one with his sire and the few other males he’d met before—to be uninjured and not too much younger than himself.

She trilled at him, and though their manners of speech were vastly different, the most basic undertone translated well enough. She was hungry, and if she was telling him so, it meant she could not leave her nest.

Not heartless, he tossed his head in the direction of the jungle he’d traveled through. What did she eat?

She wiggled in the direction of a discarded branch leaning against the side of the nest. He went to it and memorized the lingering smell of the fruit it had bore. With a deeper trill of his own, he returned to the silent wilderness.

It wasn’t difficult to find a small tree bearing plenty of the correct fruits. She screeched her amusement when he returned to her, dragging the whole sapling with him. He ducked his head and grumbled. Such tiny, delicate objects didn’t fare well in his mouth, not if he had any intention of not devouring them.

Her gratitude erased any sting from her reaction. She set to work, using thin legs he hadn’t noticed before to wrangle the tree into a suitable position. While she ate, he continued his exploration of the rocky terrain, reaching the highest point in no time.

The island was indeed on the smaller side, but if it was only meant to be the nesting site as he suspected, it was perfect. However, his new friend, with her parent dead, didn’t stand a chance on her own just yet. He wondered if the other parent still lived, but quickly put it out of his mind.

It didn’t matter, after all, since they quite clearly weren’t present. A living parent was no help if they were an absent one as well.

His explorations had taken him from his home for many sun-spans before, sometimes as much as a full moon cycle. Though entirely leaving his family’s territory was new, he would not be missed for a while yet.

Decision made, he snorted, and began the short trek to return to his new friend.

She seemed confused when he stretched himself out along the outer edge of her nest, leaning his chin on it to watch her. When he’d been young and incapable of defending himself, this was how one of his parents always lay when he was napping.

He hummed comfortingly deep in his throat as she inched closer, eventually pressing her head against the end of his snout. The sound seemed to work, as she curled up directly in front of him and quickly went still with sleep.

• • •

It was night when he roused from his own nap. She was still sleeping, but now her small body shook in the increasingly chilly air. And no wonder. No scales, no fur, and her species didn’t seem to have an internal fire like his own. Yet something had prevented her from freezing so far.

Ah. The dead parent.

As slow and careful as he could, he rose and moved around the nest to find the best way to enter it. When he did, it held beneath his weight without tearing, and it was just large enough for him to lie down without straining the edges. Aware of his claws, he reached out and tugged his friend against his chest. He curved himself around her, his snout meeting his tail.

She stopped shivering not long after, and the rest of the night passed without incident.

• • • 

And so it began. After uprooting the third tree for her to eat from, several sun-spans into his stay, he tried to find a different method of delivering fruit, because soon he would be out of easily uprooted trees. Her pleased chirps when he did made his chest puff up with pride—and also made the struggles he’d had with the branches worth it.

Water initially posed a bigger problem, but between the fruit and not infrequent rainstorms, she did well without his help. Communication was still limited, but he began to recognize the exact way she trilled and chirped enough to assign meaning. Without any other cues, he knew when she asked for food, or when she sought his warmth, or when she desired comfort in the face of her parent’s death.

Knowing he would never take such a thing well himself, that comfort was freely and willingly given.

Lack of perfect understanding wasn’t enough to keep them from finding ways to entertain each other. She seemed endlessly fascinated with the jagged spines on his back, and she could watch him wave his tail around for ages without growing bored.

The end of the moon cycle was growing closer when something changed. She ate more and more and began to grow listless. Chirping took energy where before she could sing for half a sun-span without tiring.

He worried. What if she was sick? There was no injury, so it couldn’t be rot. None of the fruit he’d delivered her had smelled bad. The rains had been abundant. Sickness seemed to be the only answer.

If it were him, he’d slump in the ruins within the deepest tunnels and take comfort in the liquid fire’s heat and the way something in his core seemed to burn brighter and stronger the longer he lingered. The sickness would pass easily down there.

But he didn’t know how his friend’s species was meant to deal with illness, and she couldn’t tell him whether or not she herself knew.

His worry wore away at him more and more until he was barely eating. He found himself unable to stomach the fish he hunted, not when his friend barely reacted anymore no matter how much he nudged at her.

Then, one morning, he woke from a deep but troubling sleep to find himself alone in the nest. Panic was unbecoming of him, but he panicked nonetheless. He nearly tumbled onto the ground in his franticness, but it was this stumble that had him looking up.

Somehow, his friend had climbed the massive tree which stood guard over the nest and was hanging upside-down from one of the thick branches.

He growled up at her in alarm, but she didn’t answer. Something shiny covered most of her body, leaving only her head free. It made him want to go up after her and rip the bindings away, but he considered the chance that this was how she was meant to overcome the sickness. Perhaps this was how her species restored their health.

Regardless, he’d stay. His tail swished in agitation at the thought of leaving her up there, but she didn’t seem displeased with what was happening to her. He’d trust her on this matter.

Though bored again in his sudden loneliness, he remained her guardian, for what little she needed one. Her head disappeared beneath the smooth covering that same day, leaving him to hope she didn’t need food or water as she was. Could she even draw breath through that material?

The end of the moon cycle arrived only a few sun-spans later, and with it came an intruder.

He first became aware of the trespasser when he was on the verge of sleep, surrounded by the shining light of the full moon. A whisper of sound, an unfamiliar clatter from the jungle, roused him immediately. Nothing on this island—save him, his friend, and the wind—made noise.

A glance upwards showed no change in his friend, so it could not be her. He left the nest silently, suppressing the territorial growl in his throat. Though large compared to many creatures, there were still others older than him who could pose a threat. Until he knew what he was dealing with, he’d best remain unnoticed.

The trespasser wasn’t hard to find. It was a horrible beast, with a long tail that thinned at the end. Its body was nothing but a chest with a single pair of limbs, spiked at the joint, that it used to drag itself across the ground with. Claws dug into the island as its bone-pale head swung around from the top of a thick neck. Dark empty eyes sat on either side of its skull, and a many-slitted pink tongue lolled between its sharply gleaming teeth. The moonlight glinted on its dark, scaly skin.

It scented the air, a low chitter echoing among the trees. It was hungry. It was also at least as long as he was tall.

This would be his first fight on his own, and against a creature that was clearly a predator made for battle. It didn’t matter; he refused to allow it anywhere near his defenseless friend.

He filled his chest with air and roared.

• • • 

The fight was long and hard, as they each drew blood with claws and teeth, as they each whipped their tails around to force their opponent to retreat, as they each roared and growled and snapped their jaws to intimidate the other.

He was tired and aching, blood dripping from his head, his arms, his chest, his back. The intruder’s head was hard as stone, but he’d ripped into its spine with his fangs, leaving it slower to react. Its tail was mangled after he caught it in his claws.

Neither was down yet, and neither was willing to surrender.

It lunged at his belly with a snarl, and he dug his claws into the flesh of its throat. His opponent wrapped its tail tightly around his leg and tried to pull his foot out from under him. The distraction wasn’t enough to down him, but it was enough to make him let go. They returned to circling each other.

It pressed up against trees, twining around them to gain height. He rammed into the trunks, shaking them down to their roots, to force the creature back to the ground.

He ducked close, aiming for the jugular. It raked its claws down his back. The push and pull continued, and he felt himself growing weaker. He tried to force it in the water’s direction, where he knew he'd have the advantage, but it slithered away with a hiss.

Something caught its attention, and it turned its head unerringly in his friend’s direction. Its tongue flicked out, and it abandoned the fight in favor of an easy meal.

Even with its injuries, it moved faster than him. He roared furiously after the trespasser, but fear erupted in his belly. When he found it in the nest—in _their_ nest—reared back on its tail, jaw open wide to take a bite out of his friend’s covered head, he—

The constant warmth in his core, the burn that the underwater ruins strengthened like the liquid fire raging through the chamber, the _energy_ always swirling through his blood _burst_ out like fire and lightning and heat and color.

It surged through him, vibrating the very air with a whining hum, and a light like the deepwater ocean bloomed around his body as starlight leapt from his mouth. It crashed against the trespasser like a living thing, burning and wild and fierce and _angry_.

He roared around the starlight-ocean-fire, tasting lighting-electric on his tongue and smelling burning-victory.

The wicked creature screeched horribly as it flailed beneath the starlight-ocean-fire, but with its injuries, it could not get away. He swallowed the energy back down and felt it building in his belly like a thunderstorm while he moved to the edge of the nest. The creature reared up in a last attempt to snap its jaw on his head, but he didn’t flinch away.

Instead, he opened his mouth again and breathed the starlight-ocean-fire with all the force of his rage. It ripped through the trespasser’s maw and burst out the back of its head, killing his first death-fight opponent.

Cutting off the power again, he waited a moment, glaring down at the unmoving body until he was sure it would never move again. Victorious, he tilted his head back and roared his triumph to the moon.

The moment the last rumble passed his jaw, exhaustion and pain overtook him. Bloody and tired, he collapsed, barely managing to fall against the nest. His last sight was of his safe friend hanging above him, and he fell into darkness with satisfaction over protecting her bubbling in his chest beside the starlight-ocean-fire.

• • •

Something tickled his snout. He huffed, turned away, and tried to slip back into sleep, but the feather-light touch returned. He growled. A light, familiar trill answered him.

Opening his eyes took much effort, but his need to see the source of the trill overpowered his desire for rest. A creature he didn’t recognize stood in front of him. Its fuzzy body was only about as long as his torso, though not nearly as bulky. The wings on its back, however, were enormous.

Patterned with bright shapes and lines, they were predominantly the lighter color of ocean shallows, and when the creature stretched them up tall and wide, it appeared as if they bore a pair of eyes near the ends.

It watched him take the wings in, and he considered growling at this new intruder. He turned to check on his friend in the tree—but she was gone. Some of the shiny covering was left ripped and empty, hanging off the branch and swaying in the breeze.

He tried to struggle up, but the nonthreatening newcomer reached forward with a long, delicate leg and nudged him back down. A trill accompanied the gesture.

Leaning forward, because he was no dumb animal and the pieces were falling together, he scented the winged creature and immediately rumbled deeply. It was unmistakably his friend, looking very different but smelling much the same.

She gave her new wings a gentle flap before clambering on top of him and settling down. A faint glow shone out of them, growing stronger until it nearly hurt to look at. Warmth spread across his body, seeping into his injuries just as if he were in the ruins. The worst of the stings and aches faded, and he felt his strength return.

He rumbled happily. She was okay, and now she was helping him. He’d been so worried she would die. It didn’t matter that he didn’t understand why she’d changed the way she did, not when she was obviously fully recovered from whatever sickness had plagued her.

They stayed like that until the sun was high above them, trickling through the leaves as a reminder that the world still moved beyond their peaceful bubble.

Eventually, his hunger got the best of him, and he carefully nudged his friend aside. His steps were slow and weary, so it was a relief to slip into the ocean. Even with her help, he knew he needed to return to the underwater ruins to finish healing—and that meant leaving this island to return to his family’s territory.

He resurfaced after filling his belly and was content to float on his back. A faint screech sounded from above him. He looked up.

She was flying, though not entirely smoothly, not yet. With a bit of a wobble, she touched down on his stomach and shook her wings.

More than ever, he wished their understanding of each other’s base language was better. He wanted to explain his need to leave.

It turned out to be unnecessary. After they returned to the island, they’d both been tired enough—him from the fight, her from her first attempts to fly—to sleep long before nightfall. Morning brought a visitor.

The newcomer came from the sky and looked just like his friend, only larger from age. The remaining parent, no doubt. He couldn’t understand the conversation between her and her parent, but body language filled in the gap.

The island, which he had long known to only serve as a nesting site, had served its purpose. It was time for them to go their separate ways.

Her parent seemed wary of him but couldn’t prevent his friend from approaching to convey a final goodbye. The world was large, even compared to creatures of their size. A second encounter was unlikely.

She trilled her thanks for protecting her and helping her survive to this next stage of her life. He understood enough of her chirps and screeches to know that much. He nuzzled his snout against the top of her fuzzy head and rumbled his contentedness. It had not been any great effort or trouble to stay with her.

He would miss her, he thought as he pulled away and retreated to the water. She flew off in the other direction, following her parent, and he waited to dive until she was a speck in the distance. He left the little island with the just-big-enough nest behind, feeling a bit gloomy about it.

It’d been a pleasant moon-cycle, but he couldn’t claim not to be eager to return home. He’d have a nice story to tell his parents and he’d continue to grow until creatures like the one he’d defeated were unable to compare to his size and he’d try to breathe the starlight-ocean-fire again and eventually, he’d probably forget about his friend.

What were the chances, after all, that he’d ever meet her again?

_(He would not, in fact, have time to forget about her, because the years following his little adventure saw him lose both parents, quite accidentally prove himself King among their kind, have his first encounter with the tiny creatures called humans, and meet the one who the fates had determined to be his Queen._

_She was just as happy to see him again as he was to see her—and no, he wasn’t only happy to have her with him because she was infinitely better at dealing with the humans—but that is something of another story.)_

**Author's Note:**

> They’re like kindergarteners meeting for the first time: “You, I like you. Have a tree.” “You gave me food, you’re my new favorite person.” _Achievement unlocked: friends for life._
> 
> I don’t care how unlikely it is for a Skullcrawler to have found its way to the island—twice, depending on whether or not you want to believe it was the creature who killed Mothra’s parent. I have my reasons for choosing it as the hungry intruder, because I’m apparently incapable of making simple decisions without coming up with a greater purpose and reasoning for that decision.
> 
> Lots of love from your local galaxy, here’s the black hole that is [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com), and don’t be like Godzilla and uproot trees for your bff


End file.
